The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - How to Navigate Your Marriage During COVID-19

Episode Date: May 8, 2020

Many marriages are being put to the test right now, as we continue dealing with the realities of COVID-19. Jeff is joined by psychologist Dr. Peter Damgaard-Hansen to discuss some of the problems married couples may encounter in quarantine and how we can better love and communicate with our spouses. Do you have comments or questions for Jeff? Email Jeff at [e-mail]. You may hear your question or comment in an upcoming podcast episode! To sign up for weekly episode shownotes sent directly to your inbox, text JEFFCAVINS to 33-777.

You're listening to The Jeff Kavens Show, Episode 165, How to Navigate Your Marriage during COVID-19. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavans. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven show. Well, you're in for a real treat today on the Jeff Kavan show. We're going to have a guest today that's going to be talking about a topic that I think is going to be of great help to you, particularly if you're married or you know someone who's married or you're living with someone who's married or your neighbors with someone who is married or sharing the planet with someone who is married. You know, during this pandemic, the COVID-19 virus going around the world, it certainly has caused a number of serious problems in people's lives. But one of the problems that we don't hear a lot about, we hear about finances and we hear about job-related difficulties and homeschooling and so forth.

But one that we don't hear about a lot. And I think the reason is because we are a little skittish about sharing our own lives is the marriage. relationship. And what happens to a couple who one day stood before the altar and said, I do in sickness and in health and in pandemic and not pandemic. They made that promise to one another, entered into a covenant. But I don't think they thought that they were going to be with each other 24-7, even though before they got married, that was their dream. Their dream was to be with each other, 24-7, and that dream in some cases has turned into a nightmare. I have some wonderful news for you today. We have a guest all the way from Denmark. Joining me today is Dr. Peter Damgart Hansen,

licensed psychologist who happens to be an expert in this area and has spent decades counseling people and sharing with people how to deal with the difficulties in their marriage. Dr. Hansen, good to have you on the show. So wonderful to be here with you, Jeff. All the way from Denmark. A country that I have not gone to yet that I would love to. Oh, you shall be welcome here. Hey, I've got to ask you, you've written extensively on this topic,

and this could not be a better topic today. You've written extensively on this. If somebody had mentioned to you four months before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out and told you that husbands and wives were going to be stuck in the same apartment, same house, same loft for three, four months in a row, what would you have predicted at that time? Oh, well, I would have predicted a very busy time for marital counselors coming up. And many marriages actually being put to the tests of what they committed to when they stood before the altar.

Big trouble coming. Just a forced togetherness is bound to bring up stuff you would not have noticed maybe or dealt with under different circumstances. So that would have been my guess, definitely. And no doubt, no doubt people are experiencing that right now and that they are seeing that the things that they never dreamt were existing beneath the surface of their relationship are now right there. And it's coming out. And it's surprising people or they're coming to the conclusion that, well, maybe, you know,

maybe I, maybe we're not meant for each other, or this was just the straw that broke the camel's back. This was the clear look at what really is reality and what has always, always been there. And I know you well enough to know that that's not the case. In any relationship, you're going to have certain dynamics. I like one of the things that you said, in one of your writings, you said, it's not good for man to be alone. And you didn't come up with that idea. I know. It's not good for man to be alone. But you also say, but it's not easy to be with one another either. Yeah, we need to have one along, too, to get the full picture. That's right. That draws people's attention because they can relate to that. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's very,

very true. I want to ask you, why do so many people have so many marital problems when nobody wants the problems. Nobody got into their, you know, they never got into the marriage hoping to have problems or expecting to have major problems. They didn't want that. Is it all about poor matches or is there a deeper explanation here as to why people have problems? I definitely think so, Jeff, that there's a much deeper explanation. I don't think it really has to do with poor matches. You know, it can't be true that everybody or more than 50% of marriage is picking. the wrong one all the time. So we have to look for deep explanations. And I've been working with this for 35 some years with couples and slowly begin to see that and understand that marital

difficulties are in inevitable part of marriage. And we need to understand why that is the case. I mean, we all come into this relationship with the baggage we don't fully understand. We come in was a lot of expectations that are unrealistic, you can say. Not that it's wrong to have expectations. We certainly should have, or we wouldn't do it. It's just the way we go about having our expectations met. That's wrong. Well, what are some of those basic expectations that you could describe to us that we might not be able to articulate ourselves? It would be an expectation that the other one is there primarily for me. taking care of me or always be there for me when I need it.

And sure, we feel that when we have this falling in love face, you know, but what, and again, it's not wrong to expect that, but if you don't get that expectation met, we need to look at how do you respond. If you respond with frustration or feel offended, hurt, or disappointed, then you begin to introduce negative feelings, negative emotions, in a relationship that should be more open to the feeling of love. Some of those expectations, I mean, in real life, what would they, what would they look like? You know, what would be the typical argument that suddenly there's this, there is this tension in the air, especially now that people are quarantined, you know, in the same

home my word you can't get away from each other right and and you can't you can't leave that problem but what would it sound like coming from say a husband he says you know fill in the blank the quarantine gives us a forced togetherness that is a very important concept of this context no and some deeper selfish self-centered needs will easier surface they will would come sooner or later in a marriage. It's just a matter of time. Marriage is already a sort of forced togetherness. The quarantine has sped that up. So the expectation that the other one is there to care about me, to listen to my needs, it would sound like, well, you don't really seem to care about me anymore. You don't attend to my needs anymore. Or you don't listen to me when I talk.

you just turn around and walk away, it can sound in so many ways it varies from couple to couple. But the general theme is that I feel that my expectations that I legitimately have when I marry this other one is not met. And again, it's not that that's a problem. It's that I become angry, frustrated, critical towards the other one. So I find constantly behind every marital conflict, There are two people who both feel they are not getting their needs met by the other person. And just from the way I word this, you can hear that they are more concerned about getting something than giving something. That is the primary agenda we enter into marriage with.

And this is very important. And that seems to become more complicated. It's more complicated by the circumstances that we're in today in that just me and my wife. take us, put us out in the desert, we're going to have some of that, right? In the middle of the desert, there's no buildings, there's no exterior expectations whatsoever, but we still have the interior expectations of one another. But now it's more complicated in that your work, your spouse's work, has been now brought into the home, and there may be certain expectations about how you're treated.

And the way you're treated at work is with respect, people listen to you, you make the decisions. And now that you're at home, your spouse is not giving you what you wanted, even in that area. Right. So you're sort of deprived of what can affirm your self-esteem, which you can get through your work or to, you know, hanging out with your friends and buddies where you can get sort of restored a bit in a damaged self-esteem. Now it's all on the other party. It's all on the so the expectations are huge on the other person. Now, it wouldn't be a problem if love was flowing unhindered, if our capacity to love was not injured, but it is.

Actually, one of my observations is that our need for love and care is bigger than our capacity to provide it. And stop right there a second. That is an amazing point. Just say that again, because I think understanding that right there is a real first step to, you know, coming to some kind of resolve, especially when you are in a quarantine situation. Can you say that again? Yeah, you're absolutely right. It's such an important point, and it can change dramatically the way people look at relationships, the understanding of the concept of love. If we really buy this concept. And I'll be happy to elaborate on it. It sounds like this. One of my conclusions is that our

need for love is greater than our capacity to provide it, which means we enter into a relationship more in order to receive something than to give something. Now, this may sound selfish, and that's not what I'm implying in a negative sense, because we will also say, of course I love my wife. If she loves me, you know, but our approach to it is we're looking for somebody to love us because we come, we grow up with, we're born with that need, we have it to our childhood, we grow up with it, we take it into our adult lives. Yes. What happens, Doctor, if over an extended period of time, whether it's a quarantine period

or weeks, months, years, where this is not paid attention to? And is there a devolving in the relationship? Does it reach a certain point where it seems to be an emotional and relational standoff? Yeah, I mean, what we see in the quarantine is sort of a condensed process that you would witness in many marriages over a lifetime, over 20 to 30 years. It ends up there, too, with growing frustration, growing disappointment. about not getting these needs met. This is all sped up to a few months here, where you become more and more aware,

I can't get what I expect or needed from this other person. And if I feel I have a legitimate right to demand it, my natural reaction is to be critical to reproach the other person. But you see, if the other person also have a legitimate, right to expect something from me that I can't give because I need something from the other person, then we have two people needing love and care at the same time from the other person. And that means we are in a dead spot where nobody is able to provide it. Now, you've referred to this as something to do with a zero, a big zero.

Yes, that's an inevitable constellation in a romantic relationship. is actually hidden behind the romantic high where it's higher to see. But later on, it shows up. After marriage, as I say, with this a small quarantine, you can't get away again. Now you're married. You have to hang in there with each other. And many people actually do experience a change rapidly after marriage from what they experienced before marriage. Now we have a forced togetherness in a different one.

way so yes it reaches what you call zero though right and explain what that needs in a relationship yeah it's uh it's okay let's say for me to need some special care and attention from my wife when i feel low and down and maybe she's up and she has extra resources and she'll take care of me and and really uh make me feel good and that's wonderful and then other time she's down and i can take care of her and if we can do this back and force we we just don't think much about what's going on and can go along thinking we have a very happy marriage. But the constellation will happen

when I need this very badly to be caretaken. And she does also at the same time. Right. It's when there is nobody there to give anything. That's what you call reaching the point of zero. Zero point, yeah. And we have to understand this Because this is where most erroneous conclusions about the state of a marriage, whether I pick the wrong one or maybe you're not meant for each other, maybe we need a divorce or something.

That's where they start sprouting because it's not the zero point. That's the problem, Jeff. It's not the fact that there's no love. I like to say this way. It's never the absence of love that's a problem. It's the presence of unloving dispositions and actions like anger, criticism. blaming or irritation or the silent treatment or you name it, all those sentiments are opposed to love. So when you cooperate with those, you block the flow of love that would otherwise

flow a little more unhindered. That is so well put. You're saying that the problem is not a lack of love. It's the disposition of not giving, right? Not giving love, but only wanting to receive. Even though one of the basic tenets of our faith is that it is better to give than to receive, even though our capacity to receive is greater in need than our capacity to give, we can give what we have, right? Right. If we have something to give, and it's very important to qualify that statement that you should give, I think there's been too much emphasis on that in the wrong way.

It's when you have something to give, oh, boy, you can't help with give it and do it. But if you don't have something to give, and that happens to, then where are you at? Well, you're in the position where you need something. And for love to flow, we also need some people to need it and be honest about it. And there's nothing wrong. I say, oh, my dear wife, I have nothing to give right now. I am so flat. I just need so much to feel that you love me.

it could sound selfish unless I add. But if you don't have anything to give right now, either, I'll accept it. Let's pause on that point, Doctor. We're going to take a break, and when we would come back, I want to sort of shift the conversation to that solution of what do we do? What do we do when we're in a cloistered situation, a quarantine situation like we are now? And there is that silence, and there may be there's some

some spiked arguments, things said at the dinner table that you normally wouldn't say, but this quarantine brought them on. Maybe the children are watching, you know. And so what I want to ask you on the other side of this break is how can we become better at loving one's spouse? What do you do when those two cars are looking at each other and both have an empty tank? Where do we go from here? Where, what road do we drive down? So we're going to talk about that. We're talking with Dr. Peter Damgard Hansen. He's a psychologist, a good friend of a lifetime of marriage counseling. That's what he does. And he's coming to you all the way from Denmark. You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. Reading the Bible is something we as Catholics know we should do. But let's be

honest, it can be kind of complicated. Even though it's a complete story, the Bible isn't really one book. It's more like a library, with dozens of books and dozens of genres. There's poetry, prophecy, and prose. There are apocalypses and revelations, historical accounts, and allegories. No wonder it's difficult to keep a finger on the story of God's love and plan of salvation for his people, the thread that keeps all of it together. If you're wishing there was a simple guide to help you tie all of this together, then you're just like Jeff Kavins and Tim Gray. That's why they wrote the book, Walking with God. Walking with God is a single book that traces the story that ties the Bible together.

It helps you to understand the big picture of the Bible. If you're looking to read more of the Bible, walking with God will help you do it with confidence, peace, and clarity. You can find out more and order Walking with God on ascensionpress.com or on Amazon. And welcome back. A special guest today during this quarantine period, COVID-19. And that's Dr. Peter Damgard Hansen from Denmark talking to us about really the fundamentals of a relationship and marriage and what happens when you are quarantined together, which is really kind of a condensing of what was there before the quarantine, but maybe it's coming out. Good to have you back, Dr. Hansen.

We're turning the corner here, and we know that it's a difficult situation for many people, and the silent treatment just simply doesn't go anywhere. And you might be waiting for your spouse to be the big person and to open that conversation back up and to say, I'm sorry, you're right. But it doesn't always happen that way. So we're at the zero point where in a relationship there's no, doesn't seem to be any giving, but certainly not a lot of need to be loved. So let's continue on with that. How can we become better at loving our spouse when we reach that quarantine state of zero?

Yes. Let me tell you what my observations are on that. A little correction to the idea of love, Jeff, would help here. Sure. Because we talk about becoming better at loving. We imply that loving is a skill you can grow or develop almost in the same way as you can learn to ride a bike and become better at that or swimming or something. I look at love a little different. At least the love that we really long for, the love we felt when we were in love, it was something.

that was flowing on its own. You remember that from that experience? You couldn't really boast and say, hey, man, I'm good at loving, hey, what's me? Although I was. It happened to you. Fair enough. I want to underscore the point, which might sound contrary

to some theological perspectives, but I'll elaborate, that the love is not subject to the will. I mean, if it was, we could just tell people in quarantine to sit down and will love and we would have no problem. They can't do it. And we have to accept that you can be nice, you can be polite, you can be listening, and you can be faithful, I mean, and so forth in a marriage. That's all subject to the will.

But we don't marry just for those things. We just don't want somebody to be nice. It's not enough for me to know my wife is faithful and would never go with somebody. I also want to feel that this love is there. Let me qualify that just for a moment too so that people don't misunderstand. You're not saying that love is void of the will or not related to the will, but if it's just a matter of willing it, it's not going to happen. But you do have to exercise will if you're going to love someone,

like, for example, agape love versus eros or filial friendliness, as you mentioned there, that there definitely is, I choose to do something in this relationship. Yes. And I have found a shortcut into that is to will not being unloving. Okay. Oh, okay, yeah. That's my focus, because we have to come to terms with the fact how easy it is for us to be unloving. It happens all the time and at the drop of a hat, you know, and I, I, uh, I, uh, I,

I include emotions like irritation, impatience, criticism, sarcasm, and silent treatment, all that is unloving sentiments. Anger, of course, is a biggie, but they are all in one thing. They are all unloving. And if you cooperate with souls allowing them to flow to, you block the flow of genuine love. That I think we are wired to feel basically all the time if we could get out of all these self-centered, unloving sentiments. So I have given up on teaching people to love because that's impossible.

If you read the definition of love in the Corinthians, man, love doesn't seek its own, it tolerates everything, you name it, who can do that? No, we are good at doing the opposite. So I have found an easier way also to get people's attention and to make this manageable for them because people feel so sorry, sad, guilty for not being able to love. And when you feel guilty about something, you cannot love. I mean, love can't flow from a guilt-ridden heart, nor can it flow from a heart that's for a blame. So we have to get...

Dr. It seems that they go hand in hand, though, doesn't it? When you talk about, well, First Corinthians, for example, if we're going to be patient with our spouse, you can will patients, which you're saying is incredibly difficult to just will patience. but if you're going to be patient, on the flip side of that, you're talking about taking away the obstacles. Do away with sarcasm. Do away with criticism. Do away with nitpickiness. And could that be a part of being patient with the one that you have given your life to? Yes. If you can develop patience, That's fine, not by suppressing negative sentiments. Suppressing doesn't work. And then just like pretend your patient has to be genuine.

So it's better to admit if you're impatient. However, the way to develop those virtues of patient and tolerance and acceptance and is to repent when you discover you have failed. That is how we become loving again. That is to say, I am so sorry. I was unloving. And you know what, Jeff? That's sometimes the first sound of real true love sounds like this.

I am so sorry that I was unloving towards you. And I fully understand if you can't forgive me. I for you understand we don't ever beg for forgiveness. That's self-centered and putting the focus back on us. We just think it out. That is love. And that's different than giving flowers and chocolate and compliments all day long. And that's a hard one, but that's manageable.

Well, that's another good point. You bring up, I mean, you bring up, I got a lot of good points, but that's another good point you're bringing up. And that is that if, let's say you, you mess up in the relationship, you are angry, you are self-centered, you are critical, you're petty, you know, about what happens to be going on. Don't you know I need to do my work? And then it all blows up for the rest of the day. And then you go back. And then you go back to you and the truth is you want peace you want to feel that that that which you had in your home at one point and so the way to get that and i like your observation here the way to get that for yourself is i i'm asking for forgiveness and now i need you to come through on the forgiveness

so i feel like i did before aren't we clever And you know what? The hurt spouse, the hurt party, has a hard time forgiving somebody who comes with that self-centered agenda. But she or he will often get trapped in this pressure we find in Christian communities that you have to forgive a repentance sinner. Well, yeah, but only if the repentance is sincere and not a self-centered trip that wants to control the other person. You see that? A lot of people are stuck in that. Right, right. Yeah. And then for our own, for our own health, you would say, though, in general, there is, it has to be a release. You have to, you're going to, you're going to have to release that. Now, where does God come in to all of this? Because so far, we've, we've been talking about really at a person to person level. And you said we, what we need is greater than what we can give. So where do we get ultimately what we need? that comes in right here.

We're very close to that because the reason why you got upset and frustrated and angry and blaming was actually because you were hurting. Maybe your wife didn't attend to you or when you thought she should and you felt you were busy and all that. So you felt hurt and you need to be loved

and that pain is so difficult because the worst thing about pain is not the pain, but this is another my observation. The worst part of our pain is the experience of being alone with it. If you're alone with it, it goes beyond a certain threshold, and then you switch into anger to protect you against the suffering in it, and you last out at the other one, and you mess things up. Now, if we need to be able to stay in the, to avoid the anger,

the unloving dispositions, it provides that we are working on staying in the suffering when we have been hurt. And in order to not be alone there, we have to discover that Christ is there in his passion because he had all the reasons to feel offended, critical, just mental to what he had to suffer unfairly. But he chose not to reciprocate evil with evil, which is massively because he, in that way,

conquered, overcame evil on his own terms. You see, even can only thrive if it's reciprocated. And that's what married couples are great at. They reciprocated all the time. And it's actually just the Old Testament law. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, sarcastic remark for a sarcastic remark, a yelling for you, railing, a cold shoulder or, you know, a silent treatment for silent treatment. It's the Old Testament law. And it leads to mutual destruction or divorce.

So in Christ came saying, hey, guys, we need another rule here. We need a new law, which means don't respond to evil with evil. Don't respond to hurt with anger. Beautiful. So that's where we have to deepen our relationship to Christ and understand that in my suffering, when my wife hurt me and can't be with me, she might even mock me for being so sensitive, whatever. In that pain, Christ is there.

Not just holding my pen from heaven where he is, though he's right in it in my flesh, kind of suffering the same. rejection that i suffered once that hit home you're all of a sudden from your marital problem catapulted into a deeper relationship to christ and then you're in good company and i mean then you can avoid to respond negative and break the negative magic of the zero point and lo and behold love begins to flow back into the togetherness again it's beautiful and you've seen this you've seen this hundreds of times, I imagine, over the length of your career. You know what? When I tell people, it's okay to not be able to love each other with this

conviction. I see them, look at me, really? And I see great relief. Oh, is that really okay? And then they look at each other a little bit more loving me. It's almost like Jesus saying, you know, he does a miracle and they says, don't tell anybody about this. And I They end up telling everybody about it. You know, you have an interesting, we have a few more minutes here, and you have an interesting take on why does too much time together tend to bring out more problems sometimes instead of more love? Yeah, that's because you become more aware of your own, I think,

also your own imperfection, and you don't like to look at yourself as a selfish, self-centered person and stuff like. You can't hide it. In normal conditions, you can run out and go to work or go to the neighbor and hang out. Instead of now you have to deal, you have to face what self-centered person you are. But the moment you see your own self-centeredness without self-judgment, it starts to dissolve because you don't want to be like that. You don't like that. But if you're forced together, if you have too much time together, then your other defenses of distraction from all these.

truths that actually are good to deal with. It just comes very concentrated in this time. Well, what I'd like to do is bring this down to a few steps that people can do. We're in quarantine, and we have about a minute left here. I want to make this as simple as possible for all of my friends. There has been words spoken, gestures given, perceived duties unfulfilled and now we're at the zero point neither one is going anywhere what's the first step second step and so forth the first step is to understand that this is inevitable it has nothing to do with you pick the wrong one or with you you will have to realize that right now you are not able to love you just don't have it and don't feel guilty about it that's very

important don't feel guilty about it and you have to realize that your spouse cannot do it either and don't feel blaming about it. That's the other side of it. There is no need to blame somebody for not being able to do something they can't do. Right. Then what do I do for the second step? What do I do now? Then I just say, I need to be loved and you need to be loved. There's nobody here to love us, but we can sit down and hold hands. We are not alone. We are together in this. And that's the trademark of love, the experience of togetherness. Whether you're enter into that communion from the high of being in love in the romantic high, or you enter into it from suffering together in a joint experience of longing for love. It doesn't matter. If you experience

you're together, you are really actually discovering love begins to flow. You see that the other one is a good friend that is with you and that is needing the same as you are. And that's what we need to see. And then the place of repentance, turning from what you were doing? Yeah, then you have to clean the air by always picking up on all the anger you have been, all the anger you had done before you entered into this point. You must apologize. Sincerely, you say, I'm really sorry that I was so unloving towards you.

I understand if you can't forgive me. That will almost make love flow from the other one right away. And the other one does that too. Also, we are really back in a deep unitedness, and it can happen just like this. I mean, it doesn't need to take months of counseling. It only takes one session, but it may take quite a few sessions before you read to have one. Dr. Hansen, it's been good talking to you, and I hope we can talk later about some other aspects of marriage in the quarantine. it's just plain good, good guidance that you are giving.

And most of the time, that's what people need. You know, they're in the cloud and they can't see things the way they really need to see them. And their expectations oftentimes are very clouded by secular expectations of Hollywood and the ultimate prince meets, you know, the princess. And they live happily ever after. But, you know, it's kind of funny. and I'll end on this one. I used to be a pastor before I came back to the Catholic Church.

I married many, many, many people, and they had what was called a unity candle. And there were two candles burning up on the altar as the wedding ceremony began. And it was sort of a climax of the ceremony when they would take their individual candles and they would light the unity candle and they would blow out their own candle. And I always thought, wow, that's a lot easier to do now. It's going to be later. You guys are in for a firestorm, you know, at some points. But you've given us some good advice.

So God bless you and stay healthy and safe in Denmark. And I hope to come over there and visit with you sometime. You're very welcome. Thanks. It's been a pleasure to be with you today. Absolutely. Very good. And we'll put information about Dr. Peter Damgard Hansen in the show notes.

My friend, I want to encourage you today as we, wind up this show. It's a little bit different of a show. And I got to thinking about, you know, many of you and the letters you've written, email and notes about about what's happening in your own home. And you don't just need someone to read First Corinthians 13 to you. You need to get behind the scenes, if you will, of the drama in your home and to figure out what really is happening here and what can be done about it. And it can seem so difficult. But as Dr. Hansen mention, it can really happen quickly, too. And it is about love. It's not about Old Testament love in the sense of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but it is dying to ourselves,

choosing to love the other person, and allowing God to be in the midst of the relationship. It's not going to happen by accident. You are going to have to exercise your will, but as Dr. Hansen mentioned, exercising your will often is a matter of doing away with those. things that are really hindering you. It's like the person who wants to get healthy and lose weight and they get on a diet and they start juicing and they start taking their vitamins and yay, that's good. But they never stopped eating the junk food and they never stopped sitting in the lazy boy watching television all night. And then afterwards they say, you know, I tried the health food. I tried the juicing. I tried the vitamins and it just didn't work.

In fact, I tried it with all of my heart and all of my will and all my strength, but what you did fail to do is to get rid of the things that were giving you toxicity in your system and causing you to gain weight. And so we've learned a lot today. Hey, if you want the show notes for any of the shows, all you've got to do is text my name in no spaces, Jeff Kaven's, text to the number 3377, and you will automatically get all the show. notes and that's going forward and even the notes from today. Allow me to pray with you and ask God to bless you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Lord, I thank you for my friends and I lift them up to you today, particularly those who are struggling in their marriage right now. I pray, Lord, that you would truly be in the midst of that relationship. And may they may they see each other in new light now as a result of the good advice that Dr. Hansen has given

them. And may you reign supreme and may love triumph in their relationship. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. God bless you and have an amazing, amazing week. Thank you.